So Cech out, Terry possibly out of Liverpool V Chelsea, Liverpool gone from evens to 4/5

probably the latter.

but they'll still smashya

Smart money suggest you're right. But I think it's very dangerous going soft now. I remember Boro doing it a few years ago when they were doing well in 2 or 3 cups, and resting players, let all the steam out of their momentum and they bombed. I know Boro aren't Chelsea, but you risk letting in some negativity by giving up a match, and such a crucial one.

Liverpool happy with 0-0, Chelsea cant score so another Mourinho borefest

Have never known BR to be happy with 0-0. Only knows one way and that's attack.

i dare say city would have been happy with a 0-0 when chelsea went there.

liverpool dont know how to do 0-0's cant sit back
fat frank and mikel suspended so will play
Matic obviously
team bus well and truely parked

Terry looked like he stood on a plug. He'll play Sunday I'd think.

If Liverpool beat Chelsea they win the league. God i hope they play there reserves.

you can have 11/10 here

that was to superglue.

4-1 to pool or 1-0 to Ch if Ch score first and early!

Just read that Cech is out for the season, Terry very doubtful for the game, Hazard and Eto also both doubtful and Lampard and Mikel both suspended... interesting.

Feel sorry for Cech. Always seems a top bloke to me.

Liverpool touching 1.80 to 1.81 here Mex,not 2.10...

still can't read uk?

Ollie Holt just wrote on his twitter
--------------------------
Oliver Holt ‏@OllieHolt22 60s

Mourinho hinting in press conference he will play weakened team against Liverpool on Sunday.

Daniel Taylor ‏@DTguardian 4m
Jose Mourinho going with a bang. Angry with scheduling of #LFC v #CFC match on Sunday and his preference will be to play B-team at Anfield

Mourinho adds he will have to take advice from Abramovich. "I'm not the most important person at the club. I do what the club decides."

whats wrong with hazard.....if Chelsea play a weakened team,then will the  fa  impose sanctions against them? It would be funny though,sky hyping it up,and Chelsea send out the reserves

Can you imagine the offers ,promises,and champagne, all going to Tony Pulis at the moment,he has the power,and chelsea and man city,(rich clubs)both need favours from the palace.Tony is going to have a wonderful end to the season ,he may even get a new team of on loan players before the season ends.and the women of old London Town love him as well,"Tony you have the x factor."

And that is after every Arsenal fan has kissed his arse at least twice.

Let the FA impose sanctions on us.

2 years ago we were kicking off an FA Cup semi final at 5.00 on a Sunday 3 days before a CL 1st leg against Barca. Now it's a game vital to the title race when they could have brought it forward to Saturday. The injuries we've picked up tonight leave us very short of options for the 2nd leg with 2 already suspended and we can't risk any more really.

Lampard plays ,so does Mikel,Ba up front,Salah maybe Oscar and the kids ,we have got bigger fish to fry

more mind games from Jose, focused on pool already

Now he wants to throw the Liverpool tie with the nod from Roman.

I told you it was a devalued league ,Chelsea will play with no players who will face Atletico ,one can only feel sorry for City

  Playing in Europe takes a lot out of a team

All joking aside,liverpool want to win at palace,man city want to win at palace,chelsea want palace to beat the other two,city want palace to beat liverpool,and liverpool may want palace to beat city,its a busy time for Tony who has become londons favourite son.and may end up as manager of the year,Tony has a lot to think about.

Liverpool don't want help English clubs in Europe, so refuse to play the game on Saturday. Shame really.   Even more of a hollow victory if they beat a weak chelsea.

Liverpool don't want help English clubs in Europe, so refuse to play the game on Saturday

I wouldn't think Liverpool would get a say in it

The league already brought forward the Sunderland game thereby moving the Hull v Arsenal game - I'm sure they could have moved it to Saturday 12.45 and pushed back the Southampton v Everton game to the sunday
You wonder why they didn't - but then again its good for the Premier League Brand if Liverpool win the league especially with United out of the picture

Brendan Rodgers is a great manager,but the special one is much too clever for him,0-2 chelsea to win.

must be really hollow they even did the double over a very weak utd oh hang on that was there best 11 how embarrassing.

The Premier league have a lot to answer for as well ,the games should be moved to cater for our European clubs and it cheapens our league that Chelsea will have to play a weakened side in order to give themselves the best chance in Europe,Atletico already had a day longer to prepare for todays game .  A farcical end to our league .

That mourhino post match interview was more entertaining than the game

The Premier league have a lot to answer for as well ,the games should be moved to cater for our European clubs and it cheapens our league that Chelsea will have to play a weakened side in order to give themselves the best chance in Europe,Atletico already had a day longer to prepare for todays game .  A farcical end to our league

total bollix - English teams in Europe get an extra £50m a year in order to buy the very best players and have the biggest squads - Chelsea already have over 10 midfielders who cost over £10m and who's fault is it that you have over 20 players out on loan

Well you have a look at the team they play against Livepool and then come back and say bollox .  We had to play Barcelona 3 days after a saturday night semi at Wembley and still beat them after they had more rest . Fook the league now Liverpol can have a devalued one .

BUT scotty you also forget that chelsea are a far better team than liverpool.

I'm no fan of Liverpool but your starting 11 will still have cost over £150m so I would like to think "the self proclaimed special one" would be able to do something with these players

Matic
Oscar
Ba
Lampard
Mikel
Ivanovic
Salah
Cole

There's 8 full internationals for a start

Yep they are the ones who may not play against Atleitico minus Ivanovic he can play and may be rested ,who plays centre half?

no toffee; i think what we need to do is go out and misuse the loan system [or at least use it for a scenario it wasnt designed for] thus vastly improving the team without shelling any money out.

Roman must be going mental - all that money and his manger can't even put out full strength (as full as they can be) teams for 3 games in 8 days? Something has gone horribly wrong obv - or of course it could be more child like mind games' from the (very) amateur psychologist Moaninio.

spyker

do you know anything about the squad system and players named in them?

if teams didn't bloat their squads with players who have no chance of getting a game then maybe the likes of Barry and Lukaku would be at Everton in the 1st place

Everton have done Chelsea and City a bigger favour as it stops them falling foul of FFP

What was the loan system designed for as plenty of teams seem to use it
Adebayor (in the past)  at Spurs
Moses and Cissoko at Liverpool
Kalstrom at Arsenal 

We still have to pay wages for Barry and a loan fee for Lukaku

i've got to say that puts a new spin on things, so going out begging for players is doing the bigger clubs a favour.

heard it all now

you are all reading the game wrong.liverpool only know one way to play and that is attack.they leave wide open spaces(prayries)in their defence.if they try to play their normal game they will get picked off very easely,so we all know that chelsea are the best in the world at counter attack,and torres and oscar have blistering pace,anyone who knows how to read football can see what will happen,so Brendan has a problem how to play the game.

so if Chelsea didn't loan out the 30+ players what would they do ?

Do you think Courtois would have warmed the bench for 3 years - do you think Chelsea could afford FFP wise for him to warm the bench ?

Why has Lukaku gone out on loan ? Same with Moses

Chelsea would otherwise have to sell them - if not their already obscene wage bill would be doubled and they would be kicked out of Europe

Please convince me otherwise ?

Chelsea have stockpiled a squad of about 200 players, 175 of which are out on loan in various corners of the world and poor old AH Hunter is moaning they haven't got enough players to cope with playing tuesday then sunday. You couldn't make it up.

Mex - yes and i also know that if you invest as much as RA has in a football club over the period of time he has you expect them to be able to put a full strength team out and challenge for all trophies at this stage of the season. If not then wtf is the point? If you want to believe the nonsense from your manager then fair enough - carry on.

torres hasn't had blistering pace since 18 months before he left Anfield

So after all the money from the mega rich benefactor and getting back the "special one" Chelsea find themselves having to choose between the 2 trophies left available to them. What's wrong with playing your strongest team from here on out and just trying to win every match left?

Or is Jose trying to get his excuses in first? Referees are against us? Check. FA/Premier League is against us in how they schedule the fixtures? Check. Other teams are against us in not inconveniencing themselves to suit us? Check. Now lady luck has apparently turned her back. If Jose's milkman is whistling a Beatles song this morning there'll be hell to pay!

The Premier League have set up a task force to examine Jose Mourinho's claim of fixture congestion. The task force, made up of ex-players and managers, as well as fitness experts has reported back with its findings, which are believed to be "diddums" and "pfffffffp".

have lpool been out out of contention for top honours that thier fans have forgotten how they managed their squad in the latter stages of the season?  anyone remember the team rafa picked at fulham?

as you know [or you should know] teams are limited to the squads they put in, and if you have as many injuuries and suspensions as chelsea have at the mo, it causes problems. the same sort of problems that lpool had when they were capable of mounting challenges on differnt fronts, but that's all gone out the window now hasn't it? [or is it consigned to ancient history]

surely if the game was brought forward it would give liverpool a greater advantage as chelsea would have a days less rest, I don't know how Jose manages with the resources he is provided with, my heart bleeds for him.

So Mex any examples of liverpool fielding/ saying they are going to field a weakened team in this situation - in fact examples from any other team would do? As it's so common to you (or at least regular) then it shouldn't be too hard to find plenty of quotes and examples - worldwide if you have trouble finding English ones if you like.

liverpool have never wanted english clubs in europe,always getting us banned.

To be fair, there probably are examples of weakened teams, though these would be when there was nothing to play for. As per Liverpool v Fulham in 08 we werent going to win the league and neither were we in danger of finishing 5th. A dead rubber in effect.

If I was a Chelsea fan though and heard my manager saying he's effectively giving up on the league when a win takes them within 2 points of the top and also handing a massive boost to Liverpool who so many of you seem to hate, well I'd be incensed.

Yes ours - plenty of weakened teams fielded but not in this situation when still in contention for the championship.

I'd love to smash in to Liverpool now, but I would have to see a weak line up for myself before I did. It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that Palace could beat Liverpool, and then Chelsea would be right back in it. That Mourinho say's if it were up to him he'd field a weakened side allows him to field a proper one and blame it on the owners Liverpool will still be a good enough price come Sunday even if he does rotate, so I can be patient.

I would love to know what the Chelsea players feel like playing under Mourinho. The football they produce is so turgid and lifeless that I cant see how any of them enjoy it.  How does Hazard , Oscar etc get through a week of training knowing that on  Saturday or the midweek games all they will be doing is defending and not be allowed to try and play football.  It must be so depressing to young men with a love of football to be forced into this mind numbing dirge Jose throws up week on week.

can see joses point, very tough to win the league now for them would need liverpool to lose 2 matches pretty much and also city to slip up again. With these 2 injuries and suspensions now to others he has to think about protecting certain players for midweek.

Does anyone know if Simeone has been moaning to the spanish press about fixture congestion and having to choose between the league and champions league? Has he been moaning that his side also have to play a difficult away match no sunday afternoon? Or has he just been getting on with things, winning games and keeping his side ahead of the worlds 2 biggest clubs? And all this with a playing squad that cost about half a billion less than Chelsea's.

^^^^

He got his team to play on a Friday before the Chelsea game

If Chelsea had beaten Palace and Sunderland as they were expected to, we wouldn't be having this discussion

And it really helped didn't it? If a prof sportsman can't get kicked a bit, kick a bit himself and run 3x10k in 8 days then he shouldn't be a sportsman. Footballers must be the least fit of any highly paid sportsmen!

wheres the athletico fans moaning that they also got to play this weekend?

"He got his team to play on a Friday before the Chelsea game"



And? They still have to play on sunday before then travelling to london. They're still top of their league ahead of Barca and Real. With a relatively small squad that cost nowhere near Chelsea's. I don't hear them moaning though.

If Chelsea had beaten West brom, West ham and Sunderland at home, Mourinho wouldn't be moaning. If he hadn't stupidly loaned out Lukaku, he wouldn't be moaning either.

toffee 87 re the clubs in Europe having bigger squads. No they don't. Under PL and CL rules all clubs are allowed squads of 25 players plus an unlimited number of young players. The make up of the 25 players is a bit more strict in the CL which is why you get clubs often having to leave out the odd player who appears on their PL squads.

Let's also not forget here that a key reason for you still having the excitement of the chase for 4th this season is because the coefficient has almost singlehandedly been kept afloat by Chelsea over the past 3 years. Otherwise we could have ended up like Italy and losing the 4th spot. So the success of English clubs in Europe can benefit clubs like yours.

To clarify Chelsea generally go with a first team squad of 23 players including 3 keepers. As it stands Matic and Salah are ineligible anyway. We have Mikel and Lampard suspended and probably Cech and Terry injured. We don't know the situation with Hazard and Eto'o who weren't able to play last night. Amongst the 7 substitutes last night we had Kalas, Ake and Van Ginkel and that was before the injuries and suspensions. Kalas has only made 2 brief substitute appearances for us. Ake has the potential to be a very good player but has made just 3 starts for us and Van Ginkel has started 2 games and has played a couple of reserve games since coming back from a cruciate injury.

To win the title we need to win at Anfield and then hope Liverpool lose to either Palace or Newcastle or draw both games. We would also need to win our last 2 and hope Man City lose one of their remaining games. The backdrop to that is we can't afford to lose any more players for the Atletico 2nd leg. People who are banging on about Atletico also playing on Sunday are missing the point that they don't have the same problem with injuries and suspensions.

As far as I'm concerned I don't want any players risked on Sunday who will be needed for the 2nd leg. This is especially true in defence and midfield where we're really down to the bare bones already.

toffee 87 re the clubs in Europe having bigger squads. No they don't. Under PL and CL rules all clubs are allowed squads of 25 players plus an unlimited number of young players

so as I said earlier and was ridiculed, we are doing Chelsea a favour by loaning Lukaku ? By the way you can have 100 in your squad (which is what you would have if you didn't loan out) but competition rules mean you can only name 25 (+ unlimited homegrown youngsters in PL). However there is a big difference between Chelsea's squad of 25 superstars and Everton's 25 made up of free transfers, loanees and homegrown players. Only one of our squad cost more than £6m !

Let's also not forget here that a key reason for you still having the excitement of the chase for 4th this season is because the coefficient has almost singlehandedly been kept afloat by Chelsea over the past 3 years

If it wasn't for the Russian and Oil money then it's highly likely that Everton would have comfortably finished in the EPL TOP 4 in the last 7 or 8 years anyway rather than us being thankful for Chelsea European performance and with an extra £25m a year who knows how successful we would have been

if chelsea win the champs lge, it would certainly devalue it. and would be football tragedy

Let's just say getting the services of a 20 million quid player for peanuts over a season sort of outweighs any impact it's had on our wage bill. The amount you paid for players is a bit of a red herring as many are worth considerably more now. Similarly we didn't pay mega money for the likes of Cech, Cahill, Ivanovic and Azplicueta and all are worth much more than we paid now.

Highly likely? How do you work that out? We were finishing above Everton most years even before Roman came along. We even had to save your sorry asses from relegation twice let's not forget including a time we played in flip flops. And yes I was one of the thousands who was singing "let em score" at the Bolton match when we'd heard Coventry had equalised against you

Think you should remember these points Toffee, at least realise it works both ways.

the Chelsea team that used to finish above us was built using £100m of debt that would have meant Chelsea going to the wall had Roman not stepped in. Chelsea would have been another Leeds and Portsmouth
In the last 10 years we have consistently finished top 6 so take away Man City and Chelsea and we've a good chance of being Top 4

If the loan system was not in place where do you think Lukaku would be ? Maybe prices wouldn't be so high if Chelsea didn't stockpile players and then we could have bought Lukaku in the 1st place
By the way we have paid £6m for Lukaku so its not exactly getting him on the cheap, probably the same that Eto'o has cost Chelsea this year

In the 10 years before Roman came along Everton finished above Chelsea once. Most years there were at least 6 places or more between the teams. Why would Everton have suddenly started finishing above us without Roman? You're also wrong about the debt being incurred to build the team. What actually happened was Bates had a vision when he secured Stamford Bridge. That vision was to have a village concept including restaurants and hotels which would eventually bring in major profits. The bonds that caused the issues were largely taken out to fund the building of Chelsea Village. The problem was that the restaurants and hotels weren't successful. The actual football side was doing ok largely because the club recognised the impact of Bosman before almost everyone else but the football club had become a subsidiary of Chelsea Village. Besides that, incurring unsustainable debt doesn't automatically mean the team will do well as a result. I think Everton have sailed close enough to the wind over the past 20 years for you to realise that.

Lukaku would either still be with us or sold. Getting a 20 million player for a year for 6 million is getting him on the cheap whichever way you look at it. Even more so if his goals help to get you in the CL. And let's be fair about this. Clubs stockpiling players has been Everton's lifeblood for a while because you've not got a pot to wee in most of the time.

Couldn`t Chelsea recall Lukaku (or could have)?

Lukaku would either still be with us or sold
he wouldn't be any where near Stamford bridge for the same reason he isn't at the moment - he wants to be playing regularly and we will have improved him as a player. I bet he isn't in a hurry to be playing anti-football either


Couldn`t Chelsea recall Lukaku (or could have)?

no, for probably 3 reasons
we paid a loan fee to take him for a year
he wouldn't be in their 25 man squad
the loan fee we paid probably is seen as income in their P&L designed to get around FFP

they have 3 strikers

Well you don't seem to have sorted out his first touch anyway. His second touch still seems to be retrieving the ball from the crowd.

The reason he's not around at the moment is because he's not good enough to play regularly for a side challenging at the very top. That's why he's with you

I agree - he is very poor with his back to the goal and prefers direct football running on to the ball - he'd probably fit in well in a direct side like Liverpool

But you're the one telling me that £6m is cheap and that he is a £20m striker

We have quite a lot of discussions on him. The general consensus is that we'd stretch to about £15m for him but would prefer another striker like Bony or Remy as a preference or as well as. If Remy was available for £10m (his supposed buyout clause) then we'd much rather have him for £10m than Lukaku for £20m

Yeah but you don't get much for 20 million these days - just look what we got for 50 million!

I have actually read a few things on a few Everton forums suggesting that there's no great desperation to keep him. Certainly at that price anyhow. That may come as a shock to some on our forum.